I got my Raspberry Pi 3 out today so I could try and program my new 8bitdo nes30 controller. When I added power and put it aside to let it boot and after a couple minutes I picked it back up and nearly burnt my hand.

The SD card holder was hot enough to start a fire. If I had this system in its case with a thin battery underneath it prolly would have.

Afterwards I popped in a 16gb that I had loaded for the zero and it works fine in either of my pi's.

So I did some looking around and but nobody knows why. Or how exactly to fix it. Ive tried reboots to no effect

I later tried to re-format and Image the card but now it just gets too hot to try anything.

There was nothing unusual done with the card. I had been running the same card system for at least few weeks with the latest raspbian version. It's a Sandisk micro SD 32gb

This is a very dangerous problem and NEEDS to be investigated and fixed.

Last edited by Duhjoker on Sun May 22, 2016 11:01 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I had a Samsung EVO Pro+ card smoke and burned out like that the 1st time I powered on my Pi3 out of the box. Card was a retail package from Best Buy and I had been using it in my Pi 2 for a few weeks until doing Raspbian update and inserting it in my Pi 3.

That 1st time connecting power there was no video and I immediately disconnected upon the smell of burning plastic. The Pi 3 metal sd card slot cover was yank away HOT, but after removing the burned card and letting it cool down, I risked another SD card and it booted right up and has been working since using multiple SD cards and power supplies.

I still need to file a warranty claim, though I'm not sure Samsung would accept it, the card has a brown burn spot.

SD card getting hot is a symptom of a damaged SD card, had a SD card do much the same after working for months in my RPi 2. Card just gets hot, does not format etc. Another SD card has been working fine for the past month. I may have "damaged" it when removing the board from its previous case when transplanting to new case with Iqaudio Pi-Dac +. SD cards are not always as robust as most of us assume.

Not a fan of Sandisk personally. I've had poor luck with them in the past and stopped using them. To be fair, that was many years ago in the past, so I have no recent experience, but I still won't use their stuff.

I have several microSD cards in rotation now from Transcend, PNY, Silicone Power and Lexar. All have worked fine in an original Pi-B (with SD adapter), Pi-Zero and Pi3. Faster cards do make a difference so go for at least Class-10, and UHS if you can.

My Pi3 is currently running off a 64GB SP Class-10 UHS/U1 card which can read at 85MB/s and it's noticeably faster than my previous card that was rated at 48MB/s. I'm considering springing for a U3 card which has a much faster write speed, but those are twice the price (I paid $15 for the Silicone Power 64GB).

My mind is like a browser. 27 tabs are open, 9 aren't responding,
lots of pop-ups...and where is that annoying music coming from?

This is a very dangerous problem and NEEDS to be investigated and fixed.

Indeed.

I don't believe this is a Pi Problem. It's an SD card problem.

I had an old Pi running for many months. Taking snap shots with a Pi camera and delivering them over the internet. Very little writing to SD card as the images were saved to a RAM disk. Or reading for that matter as it was powered up all the time and just doing it's thing.

Then it stopped working. I took it indoors, powered it up again, and smoke started coming from the SD card. It got very hot very fast. WTF?

I replaced the SD card with a new one and it has been running ever since without trouble.

If you google for "hot sd card" you will find this problem has been around, in many places, for years.

Many speculate that this is down to fake SD cards, which is a known rampant problem.

This is a very dangerous problem and NEEDS to be investigated and fixed.

Indeed.

I don't believe this is a Pi Problem. It's an SD card problem.

I had an old Pi running for many months. Taking snap shots with a Pi camera and delivering them over the internet. Very little writing to SD card as the images were saved to a RAM disk. Or reading for that matter as it was powered up all the time and just doing it's thing.

Then it stopped working. I took it indoors, powered it up again, and smoke started coming from the SD card. It got very hot very fast. WTF?

I replaced the SD card with a new one and it has been running ever since without trouble.

If you google for "hot sd card" you will find this problem has been around, in many places, for years.

Many speculate that this is down to fake SD cards, which is a known rampant problem.

I actually bought my card from a us seller and the packaging looked legit. You said it could due to fakes. Is this an FTDI-gate type thing or do cheap cards just do this.

Could part of my xserver graphical glitches be caused by this problem?

reply to Duhjoker on Hot SD
Objective is safety and discussions here can be used kaizens for flash mfgs, dealers, programmers and also Pi users.
I think the forum members are DIY-ing with much fan experiencing even such hot and going improving use environment in worldwide.
masa

I use Sandisk and Samsung SD cards, as these are what are easily available locally. In my case it was a cheap Samsung that in my haste to get my RPi 2 out of the old case and into the new one for my Iqaudio Pi-Dac +, I did not remove from the Pi, which did not want to clip out of the old box, removed the card and it popped out real smartly. Put it back and no go - lots of instant heat. Threw it away, and used another I had aquired for another purpose in its place.

reply to Duhjoker on Hot SD card
Yes, in other words but on this common issue without changing our scoping,
there are many reports on such hot micro SD on the web and this forum can contribute to this issue by discussing cases posted here also for our own safety.
Reports will be useful for SD manufacturers to improve speed, efficiency, safety and durability etc. of such excellent tiny product, also for DIY use.
I think this forum members enjoy DIY-ing with less cost, some risk and much fun of creative works (in some cases with cooling fans).
masa

I have had several do this, but mostly USB sticks. All of my USB 3.0 sticks have done this in various machines. They stop working afterwards. Really annoying. I've stopped buying them. I just use the cloud now.

I've been having good luck with Transcend Ultra 600x devices in my Pi's so far. It's hard, though, because I'm sure those can be faked just as easily as any other brand. But so far so good and performance is noticeably better.

I wish Raspberry Pi had built-in flash. It can't easily work without an SD card and most people (especially new people who aren't going to try to boot off something else) have to buy one, so why not just put some trustworthy flash in? Or make Raspberry Pi branded SD cards that we can trust.